


The Tower

by Pennyforyourthoughts



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Childhood Friends, Circle Tower, Gen, How Long You do suffer dear heart, Long Suffering Misha, Pranks and Practical Jokes, bb mages being adorable rapscallions, firendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennyforyourthoughts/pseuds/Pennyforyourthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by and written for Acidaran and her wonderful Grey Warden, the Elven ice mage Misha - check out her work, and the spectacular Dragon Age pieces that began this fic, <a href="http://acidarans-sketchbook.tumblr.com/">Here</a>  and <a href="http://holyshitdragonage.tumblr.com/">Here</a></p>
    </blockquote>





	The Tower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acidaran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acidaran/gifts).



> Inspired by and written for Acidaran and her wonderful Grey Warden, the Elven ice mage Misha - check out her work, and the spectacular Dragon Age pieces that began this fic, [Here](http://acidarans-sketchbook.tumblr.com/) and [Here](http://holyshitdragonage.tumblr.com/)

In a tall gray tower, in a large gray room, sat two boys in gray robes writing in black ink on white parchment. {By the necessity of contrast only, else the decorating theme of ‘gray, offset by gray, with gray accents’ would be preserved unsullied.}

One of the boys, sharp and still, seemed as if he were trying, in the compression of his body and the constraint of his movements, to become grey as well – while the other, with his disarray and distraction, to defy such a transformation from taking place.

 

Misha was in something of a predicament.

Master Hacouer had assigned him the task of writing a five page parchment on the eight medicinal properties and applications of purslane. This was two pages longer than the original parchment that was assigned in class, as this was punishment for ‘unruly behaviour unbefitting a mage in training’, a punishment compounded with detainment after class in the unused firecasting training chamber.

Neither the assignment, nor its increased size were the problem, as he had already located, researched, and memorized the full twenty-one medicinal properties and applications of purslane two days ago.

 

He was out of parchment.

 

Turning to the other boy (knowing that Jowan always finished at least two pages short of the minimum length) Misha’s request for some of Jowan’s allotted parchment died in his throat, unuttered.

Jowan was surrounded, on every side besieged, by battalions of malformed, mangled wads of parchment, twisted and torn by the equally bedraggled quill resting in an ever widening pool of its own ink, as it slowly bled out on the edge of Jowan’s desk.

It was possible that Jowan was attempting to complete his assignment (a twelve page parchment on the second Exalted March of the Glory Age, under the authority of the Devine Galatea) by re-creating the pivotal battle with the use of parchment balls and a broken stool respectively representing the Chantry forces and the Imperium occupied Starkhaven Keep.

Possible, but unlikely in Misha’s opinion.

Jowan himself was daubing what appeared to be either Master Hacouer in an Orlesian headdress or an enraged ogre on the side of his desk, opposite the exsanguinating quill.

 

With a triumphant flourish Jowan smeared the final stroke, the Hacouer-ogre’s beheading by an inkblot Grey Warden (whose identification owed more to the corpulent looking Griffon blob it rode than any close resemblance to a Warden. Or anything humanoid, for that matter.)

Apparently satisfied with the fruits of his labour, Jowan reached down, scrubbed his hands on his robes, pulled back up, and slammed his open palms on the desktop. The quill’s black blood, agitated, began to dribble onto the flagstones.

Misha, in contrast, remained very still, in the faint hope that by breathing shallowly and not making any sudden movements, he would remain invisible to the other boy – as Ser Villeneuve of the Ballad of the Basilisk did, to avoid the aforementioned beast’s notice.

For two reasons was this strategy unlikely to succeed;

In the latest bestiary of the Age, field notes retrieved from the {Noted: scarce} remains of the author attest to the ineffectiveness of this method of concealment. And Jowan, much to the Masters’ despair, was twenty times the match of a Basilisk in both determination and cunning.

Though oddly enough, only when it came to playing pranks and stealing food.

Misha knew his days of peace and study were numbered whenever he saw Jowan’s eyes burning with that particular Fell light, accompanied by a beatific expression of guiless joy.

Fell light?  
Check.  
Blissful ascendant disciple face?  
Check.

Maker be merciful.

Jowan, sensing Misha’s resignation to the end, aimed his shining {Noted: _Possesed_ } eyes and delighted smile at him from across the chamber.

Next time Misha would know to cut and run rather than waste valuable escape time trying to hide.

“Misha. _Misha_. I’ve had an apolepsy-

‘Do you mean an ephiphany?’

“Yeah, that! About the Masters’ _Master plan_. We aren’t being punished, no, we’re being _prepared_.”

Jowan’s eyes gleam maniacally. Misha draws his left arm inside his robe and clutches his Chantry amulet.

“First, first they take herbal inventory – the inventory’s essential, see – then they grab the best and brightest apprentices on _false accusations_ ‘n _trumped up charges_.  
Then they use their victim’s own brilliant and enquiring minds against them by bludgeoning them with cruel and unusual writing assignments on the dullest massacre in the history of Thedas – and once they’ve forced the hapless innocents into comas of self-defense against abject boredom, they _bury them alive_ in Mistress Gainen’s medicinal flower bed.

You ever wonder why she’s so touchy about people ‘vandalizing’ her section of the Tower Gardens? It’s because the _shriveled corpses_ of her victims are in it, a mass grave of past ‘offenders’, their _life’s blood_ feeding her herbs and her reputation as the best Fereldan horticulturalist south of Amaranthine!”

Jowan, arms raised as if one good flap and a stiff nor-easterly were all he needed to take flight, ended his speech, face nobly horrified at the depravity of Mistress Gainen’s herbal obsession.

Misha sat in awed silence, unable to decide which was more impressive; the number of vocabulary words Jowan had retained from their Literacy and Linguistics class  
{and only after the relevant quiz had already taken place}

or how his expression made it impossible to tell whether he actually believed what he claimed to believe or if he only wanted Misha to believe that he believed it.

“Misha, we have to take matters into our own hands --

{Misha was strongly reminded of how they ‘had to take matters into their own hands’ last month in the supplementary anatomy class during the vivisection period.  
Freedom called. Jowan answered.  
Misha was still disinfecting the bite marks. For all fifty-one member of the class, himself included.}

\--It’s the only thing we _can_ do, in good conscience.”

Misha’s expression spoke for him. Jowan went into a fresh fervour of moral indignation.  
“How will you study each night, knowing what grew your tea leaves?! I thought you were all about ‘following the higher path’ and making your bed every morning and not setting people on fire and shit like that. Next time you walk into the chapel, all the statues of the martyrs and Disciples will bleed from their sacrosanct stumps.”

‘Jowan, following your logic, we won’t live long enough for me to set foot outside this chamber, as Mistress Gainen will presumably want us dead as quickly as possible – to ‘keep us quiet’ and fresh enough to provide the full benefit of our ‘life’s blood’ to her herbs.’

The wounded silence that followed was absolute, but for the steady splatter of ink on the floor.

Misha tried. Truly, he did.

He thought of Andraste’s grace and strength at the heart of the pyre.

He thought of Ser William at practice, going through the sword dances in full plate armour, as fast as any market tune skipper.

He thought of the glued desks, soaped latrines, and needle lined robes that came after the weeks of lancing infected Orlesianized Hybrid Nug bites.

 

The last one held him for thirty more seconds. A new record for him.

 

Then he thought of crawling through dark, derelict corridors to peer through a crack and see the sky beyond the Circle, Jowan as proud as if he put it there.

He thought of when he was laid up and alone in the infirmary recovering from an intestinal fever, and Jowan broke curfew and hid under Misha’s bed to tell him filthy lymrics until dawn.

He thought of Jowan, and all the ways Misha would go quietly mad without him.

 

Sighing, Misha set the stopper in his inkwell and turned to face Jowan fully.

‘So what’s the plan?’

Smiling fit to split his face, Jowan leaned forwards.

“First, we need two blocks of shaving soap and a trained weasel…”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing  
> and rightdoing there is a field.  
> I'll meet you there.
> 
> When the soul lies down in that grass  
> the world is too full to talk about.”  
> ― Rumi


End file.
